SOMETHING . LIKE . A . PHOTOGRAPHER

After a small hiatus, I decided to bring back the LA Cosplay Shootout events! I couldn't just make it any meetup, so I hooked up with our friends at Nerdbot to bring a good old fashioned BBQ to the meetup. It's the second time they've joined in the fun and here's hoping to many more years. Thanks to them being able to hold down base camp, I was able to shoot a little more than usual at these events. So prepare to look at random photos!

Fanime came and went. For the longest time I questioned my participation of the event. It wasn't until my friend said he had an extra seat in his car that I could squat my fat ass in.

I didn't want to commit the whole weekend, and I was so happy that he just wanted to roll up and down for one day. We made the best of it!

He rolled up to my place around 5 a.m. and we hauled all the asses to Fanime 2017 by 10:30 in the morning. It was a slow start as I was trying to get accustomed to the locations and remembering how to shoot with my bare minimum gear.

Over time I got back in my groove and was able to produce the following!

In the never ending story of "Gil catches up with photo edits," we come to the chapter where he finished editing photos from the Geek On! event at UC Riverside.

It was a fun weekend where we celebrated the birthday of one of our dear cosplay friends. We ended up staying at their home with a lot of people and had our own personal convention with good people. After the first night of laughter and goofing off, we ended up going over to the event. I personally took it easy and laid back only taking a few photos.

The meetup originally set up for January, had to be pushed to February because of rain :(

But on the plus side, I got to hang out with some really cool people and made even better friends with cosplayers who made it out from far away. Half way through I ended up going to another engagement that afternoon, but I came back for more hangouts.

This con was the one year anniversary to when I started doing studio-styled photographs at conventions. So, obviously I decided to do something special.

I've never actually stayed at a hotel for a real convention, so I figured I try it out this year. I ended up staying with a few friends at a nearby hotel so I could prepare for this weekend.

I decided to bring in the full studio experience again. Unfortunately, the space I used last year was being taken by construction work, so I made due with what was around me.

On day 1, I utilized the white backdrops already provided to block the view of construction .It wasn't too bad, but the sunlight through the windows proved to be more of a nuisance than usual. I spent most of the day in that location, and my night shooting an "Archer" meetup featuring some friends of mine as characters from the show.

Day 2 gave me an opportunity to set up my studio in a nice visible walkway area, only taking a break to shoot some friends dressed up as Suicide Squad inspired Gotham Sirens. There were some moments of available light messing up my images, but only so much could have been done around that. Overall I was happy with the studio shots that were produced.

The third day brought a new life back to my con experiences. I've almost forgotten the joy of shooting cosplays on location. I got to run around grab people, pose them with the surroundings. It was just an amazing feeling I almost forgot about. It definitely does make me conflicted in terms of shooting studio styles or editorials during conventions. Maybe I could try to figure how to pull this off for the next convention in Long Beach.

Gonna keep it short and sweet because of all the work I have to catch up on: Anime Impulse was short and sweet.

It was my second time having an official photo area, but my first time having all the giant space I could have.

I had a lot of people hang out with me this weekend, and I was super grateful for their company. I also had a lot of people come by for photos, which is was my bare minimum I was hoping for this weekend.

I got to shoot experienced and beginner cosplayers, fashion models and some of the voice actors of Overwatch.

But I'll cut to the chase because I promised the cosplayers that the photos would be posted here.